Police in India kill 20 ‘sandalwood smugglers’
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Indian police shot dead 20 stone-throwing sandalwood smugglers yesterday during the biggest operation for years to stamp out trafficking of the rare commodity, law enforcement authorities said.
Opposition politicians and human rights activists challenged the report, maintaining that those killed in the incident in southern Andhra Pradesh state were unarmed laborers and calling for an investigation.
Andhra Pradesh police chief JV Ramudu told reporters that a dozen-strong police task force had come under a hail of stones launched by around 100 stone-throwing smugglers who were also brandishing axes, sickles and other sharp-edged weapons.
Police were forced to fire back in self-defense, he added.
Ramudu said nine smugglers were killed in Chitoor district and 11 in a second clash a kilometer away. All 20 were from the adjacent state of Tamil Nadu.
Human Rights Forum, a regional advocacy group, said the protesters were only unarmed laborers and demanded an investigation. “We think it was a fake encounter. Police liquidated them in cold blood and then concocted the story of an exchange of fire,” forum general secretary VS Krishna said.
Andhra Pradesh is home to stocks of red sandalwood, whose felling, transport and sale is prohibited in India but which is highly prized for furniture in China and Japan.
Last year state authorities created a task force comprising police and forest officers to crack down on the smuggling and by the end of 2014 had arrested more than 500 people.
India’s most wanted sandalwood smuggler, M Veerappan, was shot dead in a gunbattle in 2004 but since then smaller gangs have sprung up.
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